Saturday, July 3, 2010

Toward the End of Factory Farming

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Awhile back there was a short article in The New York Times Magazine about a mobile slaughterhouse in the Hudson Valley – pictured above are two of its owner-operators, fourth-generation organic dairy farmers Bill and Jim Eklund. These types of operations – the very first of which went into operation on Lopez Island here in Washington State – allow small farmers to humanely and healthily raise and kill cattle at or near their own farms, rather than going through the grossly inorganic and costly process of dealing with the behemoth beef processing industry. In short, mobile slaughterhouses make "small farmer" a viable profession, and "100% local" a designation consumers can actually trust. Visit nytimes.com to read more about it in "A Movable Beast," Christine Muhlke's article on the Eklund's mobile slaughterhouse.
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While we're at it with the beef, let me take this opportunity to wholeheartedly recommend a new butcher in our neighborhood, Rain Shadow Meats.

It feels like a major luxury to have such a great butcher in our neighborhood. Read an interview with founder Russ Flint at The Stranger and visit Rain Shadow Meats, on Melrose between Pike and Pine, for all of your Independence Day grilling needs.

[Photography David La Spina for the New York Times; Rain Shadow Meats Illustration by Graham Baba Architects. Both of those links are worth following to see more of their respective work.]

Friday, July 2, 2010

Image of the Day

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A preview of the YSL FW2010 campaign – Daria Werbowy by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. I think the image might just be a snapshot of a proof (?) but I like how the shadows and folds make it seem vintage. (The photos and clothes are timeless.)

[via Fashionologie]

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Image of the Day

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Satin and metallic brocade cover for
Visionaire 58 SPIRIT, a tribute to Lee Alexander McQueen, with contributions from Nick Knight, Mario Sorrenti, Steven Meisel, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, David Sims, and Mario Testino, among others. The paper in the issue is embedded with wildflower seeds.

Info at visionaireworld.com

Best Foot Forward

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Two, for missing last week. Sunshine:

Christian Louboutin Praia Platform Espadrilles,
$595 at Saks.


...and rain:

Givenchy Equestrian Rainboot in dark brown,
$250 at
Kirna ZabĂȘte.
Also available in grey and black.

To My House

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An article in the Times this morning reports on the efforts of the Harris Neck Land Trust – a coalition of Gullah/Geechee descendants in Georgia – attempting to reclaim land taken by the US government in 1942 for the purposes of building a military base, which is now a wildlife preserve.
In 1942, Harris Neck, a thriving community of black landowners who hunted, farmed and gathered oysters, was taken by the federal government to build an airstrip. Now, the elders — who remember barefoot childhoods spent climbing trees and waking to watch the Canada geese depart in formation — want to know why they cannot have it back.
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On its face, the quest of the former residents pits the goal of environmental conservation against that of righting a historical injustice. But it is also a conflict about two ways of life — one that tries to protect natural resources from human encroachment, the other demonstrating that humans can live in harmony with nature.
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Trust members do not imagine that they can recreate their old way of life, but their plan for the land is meant to be similarly low impact. It includes solar energy, cutting-edge sewer treatment and organic farming. Most of the acreage would remain wild and open to the public.
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Environmental groups, for the most part, have yet to voice opposition.

Check out the rest of the story at nytimes.com and on the Times' Green blog. Info can be found at the Harris Neck Land Trust's website.

Geeshie Wiley & Elvie Thomas "Come On Over To My House"

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Rock On

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Rammellzee + K-Rob "Beat Bop"
(produced by Jean-Michel Basquiat)


Rest In Peace Rammellzee, 1960–2010


[ via LineOut / see also Randy Kennedy at Arts Beat / image via Cocaine Blunts ]

9:23 AM

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Dominique Young Unique "Show My Ass" from a forthcoming EP on Art Jam Records. [Video by Simone Ghilardotti.] Down
load the song at Pitchfork.

Not a song I would necessarily be that into normally, but I like how it changes up a lot and I especially like the drums in the beginning, kind of this song + Baltimore:

Missy Elliott "Pass That Dutch"

Image of the Day

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A photo of Phil Spector in the early '60s, which accompanies Stephen Holden's review of the newly released documentary The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector in the New York Times this morning. Watch a clip of the film here.

Monday, June 28, 2010

At Least I Open My Eyes

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Michel Auder, Barnett Newman and Viva Superstar at the
opening of Newman's show at M Knoedler and Company,
New York (1969).


Now through July 1, Anthology Film Archives is screening artist and filmmaker Michel Auder's The Feature. The nearly 3-hour film memoir is culled from Auder's vast archives of footage of everyday life from the 1960s on (if by "everyday" you include the Factory scene, marriages to Viva and Cindy Sherman, a room at the Chelsea Hotel, and general bohemian jet-setting). Sounds chic. From Nathan Lee's 2009 review in the New York Times:
Ubiquitous as video has become, we still don’t have a well-developed sense of (or perhaps consensus on) what constitutes beauty in the medium. Mr. Auder’s videos belong to any discussion of these evolving criteria. Now that high definition is de rigueur, there’s great pleasure to be had in contemplating his early, bleary, low-resolution black-and-white images, which now look less like disposable doodling than choice examples of video primitivism. They are as elusive and tantalizing as the photo-based paintings of Gerhard Richter or the recent low-fi video experiments of David Lynch.


The screening coincides with exhibitions of Auder's work at Zach Feuer Gallery, Participant Inc., and Newman Popiashvili.